The Paladin

Chapter Ten

He had never expected her to get up from his bed with any different attitude: he had lived with Taizu long enough to know better than that: everything was ordinary with Taizu. She began to get up, waking him with her moving, she said she was going down for her bath, everything as matter of factly as if nothing had happened.

He reached out and grasped her wrist. "Well?"

"Well?" she echoed, worried-sounding. She was only a shadow against the light coming from under the door and through the cracks of the shutters.

"Was it all right?" he asked her.

A sort of motion of her head. He could not tell what. Yes, he thought.

"Don't I get an answer?" he asked.

She took his hand that was holding her wrist and pulled his fingers from her. Then she held that hand in both of hers.

They had made love again in the night. He was not sure who had started that. She might have. Certainly he had needed no reason, whether or not she had intended to come up close against him, and he had gone slower in the act this time, to give her the pleasure she had missed the last time. But he had fallen asleep again after, till she moved and waked him in the dawn.

She gave him no answer now, except the pressure of her hands around his.

Well, maybe, he thought, that was as fair an answer as she could give—no courtesan's glib Of course, my lord. Taizu thought about things. Taizu thought for days on a matter before she ever opened her mouth. He could imagine the pensive line between her brows and the fierce tightening of her mouth. Then she slipped away from him, grabbed up her clothes on the way to the door and fled in a flash of daylight.

So Shoka sat on the porch in the cool morning, with the polished bronze bowl hooked to the post, a pan of warm water in front of him, judiciously scraping the stubble from his chin. That he did most every day, when he got around to it. But this time he had put his scalplock up in its clip at the crown, the rest of it, still black and still thick as any boy's, to hang down his back. There were weather-lines about the face, sun-frown graven about the eyes and the edges of the mouth; but overall, looking at that image in the bronze, he saw an appalling similarity between himself and a certain younger man, and said to himself: Haven't learned a thing, have you?

He was finishing when Taizu came up the hill from her bath—she still preferred the spring, for whatever reasons; and he had rather the rainbarrel, which was not so cold a walk afterward. She looked at him sitting there in his old guise, her eyes widened, and she stopped there, with her wet shirt hugged about her in the chill.

He shook water from his razor and dried it, flattered and pleased at that look, that fed a vanity he had not known he had, and for which he was, all taken, a little regretful: damned nonsense, he thought, in the same moment, because it was not Shoka the man she was seeing. It was Saukendar the fool. The one the world knew.

But it did not please her.

What in hell's the matter? he wondered, and froze, afraid suddenly, and not even knowing the answer.

She was afraid, he thought.

Of what? Noblemen? Gods knew she had cause.

"Something the matter?" he asked her.

"No, master."

"Master, hell. M'lord, if you like. Shoka if you don't." He rested the hand and the razor on his knee. "About last night—"

"I'm cold. I want to get dressed."

"Girl, I'm more than fond of you, if you haven't figured that out. I'd have you for my wife, if you want that."

She looked at him still, so still, and drew herself up with one breath and a second, sharper one. She stood there a moment looking at him, gathering her composure. Then she bit her lip and ran the steps right past him.

"Doesn't that even get an answer, girl?"

He heard her stop. He heard her standing by the door, the little movements of breathing, against the hush of dawn.

"I'm not a lady."

He turned around where he sat, and looked at her, figuring some of what was going on, at least. "My wife is whatever she wants to be. My wife is a lady. That's what I'm offering, dammit. I don't think I've insulted you."

A long silence. She looked toward the dark doorway, not at him, a long, long time. And the hand came up toward the scar which, gods witness, he had not so much as thought about, not last night, not this morning.

That damned scar and everything that went with it.

No tears. He feared she was going to cry in the next moment, and his gut tensed up; but she kept her composure. And never looked his way.

"Master Shoka, please don't come with me. Let me do this. Then I'll come back and be your wife. I'll be whatever you like. Just stay the hell out of my trouble!"

He sat there, still, calm, while a girl cut at him in a way that no one on earth would do and walk away from—if he had not sensed the pain in her, and the woman's honor she had, not to take morning-promises of a man that he might be fool enough, having shared a bed with her—to mean for three and four hours.

"I put no conditions on anything," he said. "I couldn't stop you from coming here. Now you can't stop me from leaving this place. You see—preventing things is very difficult. So I taught you. So I let you go. And now you can't stop me."

"Yes, master Shoka." A hoarse and hollow tone, as if she foreknew defeat and played the game for courtesy's sake.

"I'm no fool, girl. I passed my own adolescence a long time ago. Give me that."

Silence.

"That's what you think, is it? I'm a fool?"

"No, master Shoka."

Bitterness overwhelmed him, a sudden vivid recollection of Meiya's grave, carefully painted face, a meeting in a garden, in the palace: Marry someone. For the gods' sake— And a thought, sharp-edged, that Meiya had traveled into that hazy nowhere-land of legends, a damned romance the country-folk told in wintertimes. Saukendar and lady Meiya. As if he, plain Shoka, had no right to tamper with that, or change the ending.

Master Saukendar. . . .

—Dammit to hell, I'm still alive!

And if I want a Hua pig-girl in Meiya's place, isn't that my right?

I never wanted to be a damn legend.

"Dress," he said sharply. "Then get out here. Or if you've changed your mind about going to Hua, say. You're not obliged to be a fool, you know. Or if you're set on it, then we'll go today. Whatever you choose."

She went inside. He picked up his shirt from beside him on the boards, put it on, belted it this time, and looked up at a thump and crash of something from inside the cabin.

Temper. Yes.

He put his armor sleeves on and tied the fastenings, and the shin-guards, with their ties, before Taizu came out and dumped their rolled mats on the porch.

"Come here," he said, and pointed to the steps at his feet. She frowned and came that far. "Sit," he said, and added: "Please."

"What are you going to—?"

"Sit."

She sat, and he unbraided her wet hair and combed it, carefully—then faced her about by the shoulders and took his razor.

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"Come, come—" He took up one lock and the other, combed them back, then cut the next, making a fringe of bangs.

She squinted her eyes and wrinkled her nose as the hair drifted down. Three and four judicious cuts and he took a loop of metal and a pin and faced her about again, combing the long hair up to fasten.

"You're wasting your time," Taizu said.

"Why?"

"You can't make me look like a lady."

"That's all very well. I don't want them to take you for a bandit, either." He faced her about again, combed more hair loose about her ears, held her by the chin. "Damn, that's not bad."

Her mouth made a hard line. There was thunder in her eyes, and a trace of rain.

"It makes the scar show."

He pinched her chin hard. Shook at her. "What kind of thinking is that? Hold the head up. Hell with the scar and hell with them. People won't forget your face, that's sure. So hold your chin up. Who are you afraid of?"

"Nobody."

"What kind of words are you afraid of?"

"Nothing."

"Mmmn, it used to be Sleep with me."

She jerked away from his hand and gave him a furious scowl.

He smiled at her. "You're damned pretty."

"You're a liar, master Shoka."

"Girl, girl, you've got it wrong: a man lies to a woman about that before he sleeps with her, not after."

That set her back. He saw the flare of her nostrils, the set of her mouth.

"Better pack before we get into too much of this rig," he said. "And get Jiro saddled. I hope you know he's not carrying much baggage. He's no pack-horse, and his full rig weighs."

Still the scowl.

"Poor old fellow," Shoka added. "You're doing a terrible thing to him, you know."

He said it to torment her. But he also felt it.

Jiro laid his ears back when the steel went on, and he blew himself up and threw his head and shifted and stamped, all calculated to make saddling him difficult.

"I suppose you know," Shoka said to the horse, and patted him hard on his leather-and-steel armored neck. "It's the road again. Back by spring, if we're lucky."

One could promise anything to a horse. Jiro never listened anyway. He only flicked his ears and sulked.

A man, Shoka told himself, ought to have better sense.

He unfolded his armor-robe from where it lay on the porch, and put it on—a little frayed, a little stained from where he had bled on it all those years ago, but the gold-thread dragons were still bright, their green eyes undimmed. Clouds and dragons on the robe, and red stitching on the breeches he was wearing, that color being faded, considerably—hard to tell what it had been to start with. He tied his belts and sashes, eased the body armor on and sighed, fastening the side ties, while Jiro waited down at the stable, stamping and fretting.

The silk weavings of the armor had been red once. Those on the body-armor mostly looked brown—especially since the mud. He finished the ties across the chest, and looked to Taizu, who came out with their bows, their quivers, her sword, and the bundles that were their food and their pots and pans and their personal necessities.

She came back in a second trip with her armor, and sat down and did her own shin-guards and her sleeves; but he helped her with the rest.

"Not at all like a bandit," he said to her. In fact, he thought, he had done quite a good job with her gear—small deer-horn plates stitched in patterns: her colors were all tans and brown. But he found a red silk cording among the things he had brought from Chiyaden and made her stand still while he tied it in her hair.

"You have to understand," he said to her. "A little decoration makes your enemy know you're confident. It makes him worry."

She frowned doubtfully at him.

"It's the truth. Who would you be afraid of? A scruffy bandit? Or a man who takes care for himself and his equipment? A ribbon or two and you look much more substantial."

Bang. From downhill where Jiro expressed his impatience, a kick at the stable wall.

"You're damn pretty," he said, and touched the scar on her face. "Wear it like a banner, girl. Like a challenge. You survived that. You're not ordinary. Hear?"

Bang, from the stable-yard.

Taizu-gnawed at her lip. Not angry, no. Listening to him.

"You're my student," he said. "You won't make me ashamed. I have confidence in you."

"Then don't go!"

"Mmmn, it's not lack of confidence in you. Don't you think the whole of Hua province is too much for one girl to take on? You at least need someone to watch your back."

"You're making fun of me."

"No. I'm determined to get you back alive. I have a strong interest in that. You've promised to be my wife if you get back."

"I—!"

"I think that's excellent good sense. Look at what I can give you. A fine house. A whole mountain to hunt on. Good company. Are you sure you want to go to Hua?"

"I know what you're trying to do. You're going to be arguing with me all the way to Hua. And you'll step in at the last moment and kill Gitu. And I'll never forgive you for that."

Bang.

Bang.

"I have no such intention. I do plan to give you a little advice. I think that's only—" Bang."—reasonable. You can have Gitu. I certainly won't contest you for a prize like that. Are we ready?"

Shoka did not look back when they left, leading Jiro. He knew what the place would look like: like home, only empty and dead—and sights like that were no comfort. Taizu did. And at least she cared.

Jiro laid his ears back and showed the whites of his eyes on the descent. It went by fits and starts, Jiro planting his feet in the narrow slot and eyeing the next steep, root-tangled turn: then a rush that ended with Jiro braced crosswise on what level ground he could find and looking with a misgiving eye at the next stage.

It had not seemed this bad on the way up, to Shoka's recollection. Or he had been seeing less on that day—when he had come to this place and decided on a certain mountain and led a much younger horse up it. It was a relief when he had all four of Jiro's feet on level ground again, with all four of Jiro's legs sound, and bearing that in mind he let the old fellow rest a while, content to walk, under the green leaves, until the trees grew fewer and they came to the fields.

Those had changed too—much nearer the mountain than they had been all those years ago.

"Are we going through the village?" Taizu asked.

He thought about that while they walked, the chances of going in secrecy, the chances that a man and a girl in armor might not be spied in all the weeks between this place and Hua. And he had worried about that since he had realized he had to leave the mountain—about that, and other things.

Maybe there was no real debt between himself and the villagers. He had never thought of one: they provided him food in trade for good furs, they were useful to each other.

But he kept thinking about the boy who came for the furs; and about the women who sent the pots of preserve; and the farmers who grew the rice, and it worried him, what they would do and what the bandits might do, once the word spread.

"We're going through the village," he said, and stopped and freed Jiro's saddle of the baggage they had slung over it. "Here you are." He handed her the roll of mats and bedding, and both their bows and quivers; and slung over the back of the saddle the rest of the packets that had not gone into Jiro's saddle kits, and tied that down. Then he set his foot in the stirrup and climbed up.

It was certainly, Shoka thought, a reason to bring the farmers running from their fields and the people from their houses—one of the odder sights that had ever appeared in the single dusty street: a gentleman in faded armor on a graynosed horse, with a somewhat undersized and over-loaded retainer. At first they had not even seemed to recognize him, or ten years had worked more change than he had thought; but then someone in the gathering crowd said: "It's master Saukendar!" and the whole village pressed about them, making Jiro anxious and crowding Taizu close to his stirrup.

But those were the young folk. The village elders came out to them, and bowed; and Shoka bowed from the saddle.

Are there bandits? he heard asked through the crowd. "Are the bandits coming?"

He felt a pang of guilt for that.

"What brings you to us, m'lord?" the oldest asked, in a voice like the wind in dry reed. "What can we do for you?"

"Honorable," he said, and bowed again, "this is my wife. Her name is Taizu."

Murmurs and bows. He could not see Taizu's face. It was, he thought, probably just as well. He imagined the scowl, fit to frighten devils. But she kept quiet, while the village women stared at her wide-eyed and the whole village wondered, in politely hushed tones, just where master Saukendar had gotten his wife and—in a little quaver of fear—just what such a woman might be.

Doubtless they were looking closely at her hands, to see which way the thumbs were on. And her expression, if it was what he thought it was, would lend them no confidence, Taizu standing there with her feet braced and her sword in both hands, crosswise.

There were bows, profound bows, the elders and the villagers to them both.

"We had not known—" the elder said.

He almost said: You know her. She was the boy who came through here two years ago. But prudence held his tongue—with the glimmer of an impious notion.

"My wife wants to see her homeland again," he said. "So I'm going away for a while." He heard the murmur of dismay and forged ahead quickly. "I've business to take care of. So I came to pay my courtesies to you, and thank you for your kindness—"

The elders bowed. The people did, a bending and a whisper like wind moving through a grain-field.

"But who will keep the bandits away?" an elder asked, setting off others asking the same question, a chorus of voices pleading with him.

"Quiet!" the eldest said, stamping the ground with his stick. "Quiet."

It took a moment. They were distraught. There was fear, there were looks toward Taizu, curiosity and resentment, and Jiro picked up the distress, stamping and fighting the bit: Shoka reined him tightly, for fear he would bite if someone came near—but no one was venturing that close.

"Pardon," the elder said, bowing. "Pardon, m'lord, m'lady, but who will keep us, then? The moment you go away, lord, the bandits will come down on us. They know we've been well-off, they know we've had good harvests. ..." There was panic in the old man's voice. There were pale faces, wide eyes all around, and a whisper of profound despair. "Stay with us," people began to wail.

"Be still!" Shoka said, and everyone hushed, except the children, who had begun to cry. "Listen to me. You're also well-fed, prosperous, and there are more of you than there are of the bandits, who haven't had the courage to attack you. I trust you haven't forgotten the bow or the staff in ten years. Any of you who want to go up to the cabin and take anything, that's perfectly fine: but I'd spread the word to travelers, the demons will never harm anyone from this village, but no one else should go up there. There are terrible things. You've heard them howling on the ridges, demons with eyes like lamps and fingers like ice. But this village is safe from them. It has special protection, and anyone who steals in this village and anyone who does any violence against this village, that man will never be safe. My wife and I will come and find him. Hear?"

Eyes were very wide. People bowed, pale of face, and mothers hushed babies with their hands.

"Tell every traveler," he said. "Make sure they carry that word."

Again the bows.

"Good luck to you," he said then, and let Jiro move, the elders clearing out of their path with multiple bows, the people melting back behind them.

So they passed through the street, with Taizu walking at Jiro's head, with people hurrying along behind them to call out wishes for good luck and wishes for them to come back soon, with people rushing up to wave scarves at them and to give him ribbons and flowers.

"They think I'm a demon!" Taizu said when they had left the last of the villagers behind—a last dog coursing after them to bark and annoy Jiro. Taizu turned a furious face on him.

"With a look like that, no wonder."

"Dammit, I'm not your wife!"

"Demons can turn their thumbs around the right way if they cast a spell. Can't they?"

"It's wicked, what you did! You lied to those people!"

"About what? Don't you believe in demons?"

"Demons aren't to mess with!"

"Maybe the bandits will think the same. That's no loss, is it?"

Taizu's mouth was open. She shut it and walked in silence a while.

"I'm leaving them," he said, "to take you to Hua. It's not their fault. The only thing they ever had to protect them was a story about me. So it's only fair I leave them a story in my place. Isn't it? They're losing the furs I used to trade them. That's a lot of money to them."

"I know that!"

"They're losing my protection."

"That's not my fault! You don't have to go with me!" She turned around and waved her bow at him, so Jiro shied up. "Go back! Go away!"

"With you or behind you, girl. You'd be hell to track, but then, I could always just meet you in Hua. Come to Gitu's gate and ask if he's seen a demon-wife who's been looking for him. ..."

"Don't joke!" She made a sign against devils. "You lied to those people!"

"I'm sure they'll put out rice and wine for the demons. I doubt the demons will object. Who knows, they might even protect the place."

"It's unlucky!"

"For the bandits, it is. Who knows, my wife might come after them."

"It's not funny, master Shoka!" Her face was red with anger. Tears shone in her eyes. "They'll get killed believing you!"

He regarded her sadly. "I know. But they'll fight better if they have hope. A lie is better than nothing. And a lie, lady wife, is all they ever believed in. What's better or worse in another fable?"

He shocked her. Completely. She looked away from him and walked on under her load, shaking her head. Eventually she stopped and looked back at him, and said, calmly, composedly: "Go back, please, go back—"

"Will you?" he asked, while Jiro, confused by this yea and nay, threw his head and worked the bit.

"No. I won't. But nobody knows me. They'll know you, and the soldiers will be hunting us, and we won't have a chance."

He smiled. "You're thinking. Good. So you've got me to look out for. And if you run off, the only thing I can do is go to Hua looking for you."

"They'll kill us both! Please go back."

"No," he said, in her tone, her exact tone; and she drew a long, trembling breath, turned and stalked on her way.

So he followed, at a pace Jiro found quite comfortable, beyond the fields of the village, beyond the further hills, where the trade road became a dusty track following the general line of the small river through grasses and rocks and occasional copses of trees. They were in Chiyaden now, in the province of Hoishi, on the track caravans went, from the kingdom of Shin through the barbarian lands of the Oghin to the civilized heart of the Empire, the Lap of Heaven. Home, Shoka kept thinking, and hating the thought, because home was back on the mountain, home had nothing to do with Chiyaden or its troubles, and he resisted that ambiguity. With all it meant.

They made camp that evening in the lee of a lump of rock, where the hills came close to the road, and where there was a spring and a wide place in the road where many a traveler had camped.

"This is too open," Taizu objected; to which he shrugged and said:

"So it is. Are you afraid already? Do you want to go home?"

"I am going home," she retorted, and sat down to unpack.

So he unsaddled Jiro, and set Jiro's gear carefully on the rocks to dry of sweat; and took off his armor and rubbed Jiro down with handfuls of grass before he thought about washing the dust off himself.

Sparks and fire glimmered where Taizu had coaxed a little fire out of their kit, feeding it with grass and small sticks and larger ones she had scoured up. He was washing at the spring when she came to fill their cooking pot with water.

"Wash," he said, feeling generous and wanting to make peace. "Take the armor off. I'll cook."

She was still not speaking to him, but she abdicated the cooking to him, and started shedding the armor—cause enough to be in better humor, Shoka reckoned to himself, and certain enough, coming freshly-washed and free of that weight to a dinner already done improved her mood no little.

"Mmmn," was all she said until the rice and the tea were gone, and sighed afterward and just sat with the bowl in her hands.

"I tell you," he said then, "I won't talk about going back if you don't. Any time you want—we can. Do you want to?"

"You said you weren't going to talk about it!"

"So I'm not. I was just asking. Here. Give me the bowls. I'll wash up."

"That's not your job!" She stood up and took his from his hands and stalked over to the spring.

He untied their bedroll then. It was cool in the hills, even toward chill at night. He put the mats down doubled, two blankets for cover, and had bed ready by the time she had washed.

"I'm tired," she said, putting the bowls and the food away. "I just want to sleep tonight. Please don't bother me. All right?"

"Of course," he said mildly. "Whatever you like. But I hope you don't mind doubling up on blankets. It's going to be cold before morning."

She made a disgusted sound.

And when they lay down she pointedly turned her back to him.

All right, he thought, finding himself not so indifferent as he had hoped to be, and finally, uncomfortably, edged closer to her. The girl had thinking to do. At any moment she could change her mind and decide that she wanted to go back to the mountain, which was all to the better. So he could be patient.

He could not see himself being patient all the way to Hua.

Damn the girl.

He thought again of force. But Taizu had had that, had had much too much of that, gods knew, and she was not one to forgive a man's lack of patience. He had been patient two years. He could become ascetic with more patience than this.

Gods.

He stared at the stars. He got himself very well under control and said, quietly:

"You're not cold, are you?"

"No."

"I'm sorry about the demon business."

"Don't talk about it."

"Why?"

"Because I'm trying to sleep!"

"Do you believe in demons?"

"Of course I do. Stop talking about itl Do you want to make them mad?"

"Well, I don't. I lived on that mountain for ten years and I never saw one. Did you?"

"No, and I'm glad I didn't!"

"The village believes they're all through the mountains. And they aren't. If they were there I'd have seen them. Jiro would have smelled them."

She said nothing.

"Taizu."

"I shouldn't have slept with you in the first place. Now you tell lies about me in the village and you try to scare me."

"What does sleeping with you have to do with it? I thought you enjoyed it."

Long silence.

"Didn't you?"

"It was better the second time."

"You were helping. It does make a difference." He brushed a hand down her shoulder. "One never knows—how many chances there are. Gods know—you're supposed to enjoy it, Taizu. It's no good if you don't."

Silence.

"Dammit, you could at least answer a man."

"I'm trying to sleep!"

"Well, I'm not having much luck at it." He got up and shoved at her. "Get up. Give me my mat and a blanket. This isn't going to work."

"You said it was cold."

"So it is cold. A damn sight colder in this bed."

"I'm tired," she said, and sat up and put her arms around him, laid her head against him. "All right. It's all right. If you want to, I don't mind."

He was sorry then. He put the blanket around them and stroked her hair and held her, reckoning it had been a long way and a heavy load for a girl. Probably the armor made her sore in the joints. Gods knew it did him, and he had been on horseback all day.

"Just go to sleep," he said. "That's all a man needs, you know, a civil answer."

She put her arms around his neck and held on. He felt her shoulders heave gently.

"Are you crying?"

No answer.

'"What for?" he asked finally. "Is it me?"

She took a fistful of his hair and hugged him tighter and shook her head. Whatever that meant. He heard her sniffing back tears.

"Tired?" he asked.

She nodded against his shoulder and did not let him go. So he sat there a while feeling awkward, but finding a lapful of Taizu quite warm enough against the night chill. He leaned his head against hers and sighed and prepared to sit there as long as comforted her.

But she patted his face then and said: "We can do it. It's all right."

"Dammit, girl." Because now he was out of the notion. "Be kind. Tell me once for all if you want to or don't. Don't change your mind again. You're wearing me out."

"I said yes. I mean yes!"

"Gods." He took her in his arms. He held her a while, feeling the exhaustion himself, and felt her shiver. "You're not scared, are you?"

"Cold." Her teeth were chattering.

He rolled her onto the ground and pulled the covers over. Exhausted, he thought. And scared.

So he held her close until she stopped shivering.

And by that time she was half asleep and he was.

"Hell," he murmured, "we'll try it tomorrow."